To not apologise when I meant what I said?

[MotherOfOlafs]

MIL round for Sunday lunch last week, all very pleasant to start with. MIL always has a lot of comments about others appearances which we tend to ignore as rising to it just seems pointless. Until during lunch she told us about a woman she’d seen at a restaurant who had some facial hair. She then told us she’d taken a photo of this lady obviously without her knowledge and sent it to some friends who’d then ‘made some very funny comments’. She was laughing her head off while she was telling us this. To be perfectly honest it made me furious and I replied ‘I didn’t realise you were such a nasty bully MIL’.
The rest of the day was spent in silence pretty much. She now won’t speak to any of us (fine with me but DH is upset). He’s asked if I’ll consider apologising. I honestly don’t think I should, especially as this all went on in front of DD14 and I would never want her to think this behaviour is excusable.

If more people called out bullying…
I think the world would be a better place

Therein lies the problem. How on earth could she think that such behaviour is acceptable. Would she be okay with someone doing the same thing to her, without her knowledge, that is how I would approach this. I would not have called her a bully though, as I think that does not apply here.

Good for you.

It's very telling that instead of looking at herself and her own behaviour, she's 'upset' and making herself the victim.

Don't apologise, she's horrible!

In your opinion. Mine as I stated is different to yours.

Good for you, OP!
YANBU.

I wouldn't. My FIL is like that, always comment on how people look and it pisses me off so much.

I think @saraclara's message above is a good one.
Your MiL sounds nasty.

God, GOOD ON YOU OP, its nasty bullying behaviour and you've set a brilliant example of your daughter.
The only thing I'd even come close to doing personally is saying to her 'I'm happy to move on from this if you are, we don't need to speak of it again. Would you like to go for dinner for DDs birthday next month etc etc' as it breaks the silence and tension and moves the conversation on as swiftly as possible. You've done as much as you can then, and that's still too much - she should be apologising to you in my opinion, what a VILE woman.

I don't think you should apologise for what you said (although I do think the way you said it was unnecessarily rude) but I do think you should apologise for upsetting her. Don't, whatever you do, say 'if you were upset'. It's obvious she was upset.

Yes it would make you a liar, I wasn't in any doubt of that. Depends on how important family peace is. You could do without a person like that in your life, but how many other people will you lose with her, and how important are they to you?

I mean, yes, absolutely, but I think this risks looking as if the OP thinks it was primarily wrong because the photo was shared/the incident talked about in front of a 14 year old, not because taking photographs of people and glorying in sharing them to a chorus of bodyshaming comments is wrong in itself.

Isn't it more tactful to call out the behaviour rather than labelling the person? Ie, that was a nasty thing to do, rather than you are a nasty person

I'm with you 100%
Some horrible women at a place I used to work, used to do this often. They'd sneakily take a photo of someone on their commute to work then share the photo between them while ripping the person to shreds. Disgusting behaviour imo. You can see why I left that job! No way would I be apologising in your situation.

Why on earth should she!? Her DH needs to grow a pair and back his wife up. I would be having sharp words with him if he continues trying to appease this bitch.

I tend not to concern myself overly with being tactful to people who behave this way, and then congratulate themselves on it in my presence.

How on earth did she get close enough to the woman to take a photograph of her facial hair without the woman noticing?

Sounds just like my mil with her nasty comments about others peoples clothes,weight,shoes etc.

I called her out once on her rudeness and how people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones kind of way and she never did it in front of me again

You should never apologise for telling the truth OP!

Dont do it, and if MIL wants to hold her breath until she goes blue waiting - dont back down for the sake of peacekeeping.

So saying that someone is a bully is bullying? That makes zero sense, and also by that logic you just bullied the OP!

I would probably have put it a bit more diplomatically but you were certainly right that it wasn't a nice thing to do. Calling someone a nasty bully is quite strong. I would probably have said something like it's unkind to mock someone's appearance and an invasion of her privacy to photograph her. Either way, I wouldn't apologise.

I agree with your viewpoint but think it could have been said less harshly.

My view too.

YANBU but I would have commented on the behaviour, not targeted her directly as a bully.

Well if she chooses not to speak to her son because of something her DIL said then that's her look out!

Good on you, OP.

My own mother has started making more and more negative comments on other people’s appearances recently. The same almost childlike glee that you describe your MIL having. “She was so fat! Such huge thighs!” type thing, all while grinning.

I find it very tiresome calling it out (although I do. Just “that’s not kind, you don’t need to comment on it out loud” type stuff).I would love to hear if anyone has any insights. Is it an age thing? Just don’t give a shit anymore? Was the culture the older generation grew up in just different in this area?

These kind of comments seem so inappropriate these days (rightly so).

He should be equally furious